100 Ideas 2013: Me and my Washing Machine

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39. Write about your relationship with your washing machine.

We live in a co-op which, although not a high-rise and instead is a courtyard style group of houses, so we don’t have a washing machine in our unit.  Instead we share a laundry room with the community which is exclusive to the tenants and owners like us who live in there.

So why would I choose this prompt given the so many other prompts in this list of a hundred?  You’ll find it even stranger considering I’m not the one tasked to do our laundry on a regular basis.  I simply fold.  I chose this prompt because I’ve always been fascinated about how I can get hypnotized by the actions and motions of a washing machine as the water spurts in, and the clothes inside get wet… and the detergent starts bubbling up, and the clothes spin in a faster cycle… and over and over it happens, and I sit there and watch.

I would normally pull a chair and just sit in front of the machine where our clothes are.  I wouldn’t even think of pulling the blackberry or the iPad or a book or magazine.  I have to watch.

I guess you can say I am somehow enamored by these spinning machines.  Perhaps it’s a preoccupation with things that are round.. or go round and round.  I have never tried to figure it out until now.  But I like watching washing machines — I have great respect for them.

Go figure.